So Long, Shel: Legendary Sports Car Designer Carroll Shelby Dies

Carroll Shelby, perhaps the most legendary American sports car designer, died in Texas at age 89.

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Carroll Shelby wasn't an engineer, never went to college, and, if he'd had it his way, likely would have made a living racing high-performance cars instead of designing and building them. But his simple philosophy on how to build a fast car influenced many designers: "Put a big, powerful engine in a little car," he once told Popular Mechanics. "That's where you start."

Shelby, the larger-than-life automotive legend, died Thursday evening at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, reportedly of pneumonia. He had been ill for at least six months, and had not made public appearances since last year. Shelby was 89.

Carroll Hall Shelby was born January 11, 1923, in tiny, unincorporated Leesburg, Texas, near Texarkana. While he eventually traveled the world and had homes across the United States, he never abandoned his Texas persona, nor his penchant for cowboy hats. He maintained a ranch in Pittsburg, Texas, not far from his place of birth, and sitting on the back porch of his home there, watching the miniature horses he raised frolic in the pasture, was where he seemed the most at home. In public he was essentially forced to be Carroll Shelby, automotive icon, signing autographs and listening to stories told by longtime fans. He handled it gracefully, but toward the end of his life, it was clearly taxing.

After all, the fact that Shelby reached 89 is remarkable. He was a sickly child, and his lifelong heart problem caused a change in his career path in 1960. Shelby, who was a farmer and dealer in heavy equipment in Texas after returning from military service as a pilot, discovered motorsports in 1952. After a brief stint of club racing, was discovered by professionals and found himself racing Aston Martins and Maseratis within five years.

In 1960, though, chest pains caused him to race with nitroglycerin tablets at the ready, and he knew it was time to retire. But when that door closed, another opened: Within two years, he had found his "little car"—a British-built AC—and his "big motor"—a new Ford V-8. Thus was born the Shelby Cobra, launching a career as a car designer and builder that probably made him more famous, and far more wealthy, than he would have been just driving a race car.

Soon came a deal with friend Lee Iacocca at Ford to work his magic on the Ford Mustang, resulting in the GT350. Ford also handed him the reigns of the GT-40 sports car, and a bankroll large enough to meet the goal of the Ford family: Beat Ferrari at Le Mans.

Shelby's association with Ford—the first time, at least—lasted more than 15 years. After that, he began developing and diversifying his own business interests that ranged from a wheel company to chili sauce to his massive Goodyear tire distributorship. Then, in 1982, Iacocca called again, this time from his office at Chrysler, a company that badly needed a performance shot in the arm. Costs and pollution requirements and gasoline prices caused Shelby to briefly abandon his "little car, big engine" philosophy, which he happily updated by hot-rodding the four-cylinder engine in the Dodge Shelby Charger, resulting in one of the most pleasant surprises in an otherwise grim era for performance cars.

But it wasn't long before Shelby began helping out on a project that used a really big engine: the V-10 in the Dodge Viper. He essentially became the public face of the Viper.

Shelby was slowed in June 1990, when his heart finally gave up and he needed, and received, a heart transplant. Less than a year later he drove the Viper pace car at the Indianapolis 500, giving a few media members a ride around the track few have forgotten, and announcing that Shelby was back.

Shelby was so grateful for the new heart that he founded the Carroll Shelby Children's Foundation that funds heart transplants for children, which continues its work. In fact, this past decade, much of the Foundation's funds came from auctioning off Shelby-supplied vehicles at the Barrett-Jackson auctions. "Carroll was a personal friend to me, to my late mother and brother, as well as good friend of Barrett-Jackson President Steve Davis," auction chief Craig Jackson says. "In fact, he meant so much to me, I named my only daughter, Shelby, after him."

Shelby's health failed again in 1996, when his son, Michael, donated a kidney to his father. The next year, his relationship with Chrysler over, Shelby partnered with Oldsmobile on the Shelby Series 1 sports car. This meant that Shelby had worked with Ford, Chrysler and General Motors on sports cars, a still-unprecedented indication of the importance of his input and his name.

By 2003, Shelby had returned to Ford, working on the Ford GT project that would help the company celebrate the Ford Centennial. That August, Ford's Vice President of Advance Product Creation, Chris Theodore, announced that Ford would, once again, manufacture a line of "Shelby-Ford" vehicles. In December, Shelby Automobiles was founded. In March 2005, the 2007 Shelby GT500 Mustang debuted at the New York auto show.

Shelby made appearances at as many car shows and conventions as he could, but when he didn't take part in the introduction ceremonies for the new 665-hp 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra, even though Ford officials insist he participated to no small degree in its development, it was clear the end was near.

"We are all deeply saddened, and feel a tremendous sense of loss for Carroll's family, ourselves and the entire automotive industry," says s Joe Conway, president of Carroll Shelby International, Inc. and board member. "There has been no one like Carroll Shelby and never will be. However, we promised Carroll we would carry on, and he put the team, the products and the vision in place to do just that."